​“Your show has a very interactive feel. Besides your not wanting there to be any barriers between you and the audience, what else informed that style of performing?”

Fred: I got my first job when I was 11 years old working in a used record store. Not one of these shiny places where all of the kids are hip. I worked in the upstairs of this ratty building in New Orleans that was filled with about 250,000 vinyl records. 33s, 45s, 78s. It was my job to alphabetize them. And I got paid $10 a day and I could take home $10 worth of vinyl records. For me … I was like 11 years old … this was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

And I just found myself drawn to very primal music that expressed an emotional intensity and at the same time also an emotional vulnerability. Stuff like the old blues music. Howlin’ Wolf. Bo Diddley. Things like that.

And I’ve always been kind of an emotional guy. I always express emotions and thoughts and feelings. It’s easier for me to sing them or to write them in song or to play them than to say, “Hello, person. I am feeling this way. I am having this issue.” It’s easier for me to just go “Ahhhhhhh!”

​People always come up and tell me about either a song or a show that was a catalyst for something really great and positive that they either chose to do or that happened in their lives, which is always wonderful to hear. Anybody likes positive feedback. And the most positive feedback you can ever hear from somebody is not about, "Oh I think you're wonderful." It's, "What you did or what this song said really made me look at things differently and made me want to do better." That's such a thrill. That's the best part of doing this, to be honest with you. - Fred